


Losing The Game

by TheodosiaDear



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Angst, Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Family Feels, Grief/Mourning, HIV/AIDS, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Post-Canon, i really really love charlotte okay, im actually gonna write the content i've been wanting see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 12:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11783091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheodosiaDear/pseuds/TheodosiaDear
Summary: Charlotte doesn't cry as she watched Whizzer gasp out his last breath, while Marvin looked on, gripping his lovers frail and lifeless hand with white knuckles.When Cordelia screams and sobs on the floor , she only hold her in her arms,whispering lies and empty words of soothing.





	Losing The Game

**Author's Note:**

> { Notice: This is really just a character study but if it comes off as offensive please tell me!]
> 
> I wrote this fanfiction really to put all my research of the AIDs Crisis to use in some shape and fashion. I haven't written a fic in so long so It's probably not as good as i want it to be but i want to put this out there cause i've been thinking about it for along time.

Charlotte doesn't cry as she watched Whizzer gasp out his last breath, while Marvin looked on, gripping his lovers frail and lifeless hand with white knuckles.When Cordelia screams and sobs on the floor , she only hold her in her arms,whispering lies and empty words of soothing.

Charlotte doesn't cry at his burial. She provides sturdy but distant comfort to her friends as they allow themselves to openly grieve. She braces Marvin against her when he splinters and shatters into broken sobs,letting him stain her blouse with tears and snot.She and Cordelia drive him back to his apartment in a deafening silence.Inside, it’s so cold and empty without the flood of warmth Whizzer brought to the space. All signs and objects of his, Marvin has desperately shoved into the closet in a fit of denial and grief. Her heart aches and constricts for him. He’s to depressed to eat without being prompted and heckled by his friends, he sleeps on the couch ‘cause the bed smells to much like Whizzer and Marv can’t bring himself to wash away the smell of designer cologne and peppermint that always seemed to surround Whizzer. She expresses her concern to Marvin every time she is over, but even though he may give a response, he has never heard her.

Patients come and go for what feels like years but is really only a few weeks. She gives empty smiles to kids with broken arms and doesn't blink when a college girl throws up on her white coat at 12 pm from to much cheap liquor. Her colleagues try and give some cheap and meaningless form of comfort,she nods and replies with a generic thanks but secretly wishes they would all stop trying to talking to her. Small mistakes piss her off. She curses at every mixed up date and wrong name. Sometimes she berates herself on lunch break instead of eating, as if childish self punishment will fix her problems.

The first patient she receives with this disease after Whizzer's death sends her on an unwarranted trip down a dark road.Upon first inspection he doesn't exactly look like Whizzer no, with dark skin and a head of dense short curls. Yet he reminded Charlotte of Whizzer with his tall, slightly muscular frame, dark brown eyes and pretty boy aesthetic. The kid was pretty much alone, no lover,no one who’d cared to call to see if he was even alive. He was brought in after he collapsed in a bar and a waitress called the hospital in a hurry. "Where is your family, hon?” was the first thing she asked him,"Georgia, I made my way to New York two months ago and my parents don't want nothing to do with me." He tells her. She nods, glancing down at her clipboard she says "Conrad is it? well I'm Dr.Charlotte DuBois and I'm gonna be your caretaker for the time you're here" she wants to scoff at herself. If he has the same mysterious illness as almost every other man in this hospital, there is no way he will ever leave this hospital in anything other than a box,and yet he nods and thanks her, flashing a Charlotte a kind white smile that makes her chest constrict.

Everyday she comes in and does her check up and Conrad will chat, spilling his life story. He tells her about his little sister a teenager in high school, stories of being a Boy Scout, about time's spent with friends. He doesn't talk about his parents at length and only mentions them if they are apart a story, but he addresses them with a sense of loss and sadness. Charlotte doesn’t talk much during these meetings, mainly listening, only chiming in with hums of agreement. "I talk a lot about myself but what about you?" He asked her one day as she checked his blood pressure. Charlotte looks up at him," What would you possibly want to know about me.". He chuckles but she does laugh but stare on. "Well where are you from? What's your story?" he asked. Charlotte was , for some reason,hesitant to speak, "for what?" she asked herself, "the poor kid's gonna up and die soon and there is nothing you or anyone can do to stop it. the very least you could do is answer his questions, god dammit". She sighed, "I'm from the south aswell, Lousiana to be exact. My mom was a teacher and my father a lawyer. I have two younger sisters who are identical twins.” “and? Is that all?” he questions, “No, I had a brother, but he died the the day after I graduated med school. That was also the day my parents found out I am a lesbian.You can piece together pretty much the rest of the story.”She said, with a note finality. She didn’t like talking about her relationship with her parents, the tension between them was suffocating. The same could be same towards her sisters. They never tried to mask their disgust once, although they at least attempted to make sure she wasn't dead every now and then."I'm sorry, Ms.Dubois Didn't mean to bring up bad memories." he said, sincerely.Now was her turn to laugh “Jesus Christ don’t call me Miss, makes me feel old.” she gave him a soft smile “Don’t worry about it kid, its not your fault”. They went through the rest of the check up in silence, but for the first time in a long time it’s not suffocating.

It doesn't take long for Conrad to start getting visibly sicker with an infection and Charlotte is brutally reminded of the fact that his days are numbered. No amount of bright smiles or smarmy comments will be able to cure him.Still he seems very optimistic,and it strikes unease in her gut. A young lesbian nurse gets the key to his tiny apartment and retrieves his small amount of stuff and brings them to the hospital room. When Charlotte comes to do his check up that day, he scrambles to reach for the small photo album on the table, eager to show her something. "Doc, I realized I never got to show you a photo of my little sis. you gotta come look at this!" he said beckoning her over to the bed. She takes a seat at the foot of the bed and he hands her a small photo. In the picture, a girl, roughly 15-16, stands smiling in a crisp blue,white and orange uniform and cape. They were very clearly brother and sister.She shares the same tight coily hair tall figure and kind brown eyes.On the back of the photo, scrawled in what Charlotte can only assume is Conrad's handwriting is,"August 25, 1979 Theo’s first game as Drum Major" He talks about her for the rest of the time Charlotte is there and she cannot help but grin about his pride about his sibling.

"Charlotte, Am I going to die?" He blurts out one day. as she's about to take his blood. Charlotte, startled, stabs the needle into his arm harder than she means to. He makes a shocked noise, and she murmurs an apology. Had no one taken the time to tell him the little information they know? When she looks him in the eye, she only finds sincere confusion in his eyes and her question is answered. "Yes" she says. It comes out harsher than she'd like for it to and he accepts it with a stiff nod."Your siblings what were their names?" he says, scrambling away from the subject. "Tamera, Janaee and Justin" she says. Charlotte lets him change the subject but she doesn't let the unadulterated fear in his eye's go unnoticed.

Conrad doesn't have much time left. Charlotte hates to admit how attached she let herself get to him. She looked forward to his constant stream of good intentioned chatter. it helped drown out the grief she’s been running away from but now every glance and cough, renews the same sense of helplessness and failure she felt watching Whizzer wither away in front of her eyes. His once muscular body is frail and bony. He asked one of the volunteers to shave his head after chunks of curls started falling out last week. He looks skeletal with his hollow cheeks and sunken in eye. Despite this he still gives her small smiles at her when she comes in everyday. Though it doesn't give her the same prickle of warmth as it used to and she only feels dread and disappointment. He doesn't talk as much as he used to, the silence is only filled by his fits of coughing. Charlotte is constantly worried that everytime she leaves his room, that by the time she come back he will have died.

To be exact AIDs itself is not exactly Conrad's direct killer. When he does die it from the tuberculosis he contracted during the winter in his weakened state which AIDs did cause. When his time comes, it is late at night and Charlotte is his only witness. She can only hold his hands as he fights to breath over the fluid in his lungs. He looks terrified and pained, with hot tears streaking his face as he silently screaming for it to be over. He struggles and fights for what feels like forever until heaves and stills suddenly. Charlotte cannot bear to look at his lifeless face and is quick to pull the thin white sheet over his head. She fills out the death certificate and goes and calls out of work for the day.  
When she gets home Cordelia is startled when she turns around and see Charlotte coming through the door to their apartment. The confused yet happy greeting dies in her throat when she sees the grief stricken look on her lovers face. Charlotte’s grip on her bag loosens and it goes tumbling to the ground to cover her face and her hands and sobs, collapsing to the floor against the door. Cordelia can only hug and hold her against her chest as Charlotte cries.

**Author's Note:**

> Look I've been editing this on and off for about 3 weeks so ill prob never be completely satisfied but here take this.  
> NGL I drew a lot of inspiration from my own real life partially 'cause i project onto any woc in fiction so oh well. This chapter got longer than i thought it would so I'll write a second chapter sometime this week so check back in for more! I hope you enjoyed it and give me comments! partially 'cause i live on attention and also i want feedback on the quality so i can make better stuff.


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